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Tag Archives: Reboot

On February 17, after enjoying having my three kids off for four days for President’s Weekend, I was ready for them to return to school, and for me to get a lot of work done. But by 5:45 am I learned that their schools were cancelled because of snow. By 11:30 am, as I was trying to respond to work emails, my daughter Tali was complaining that she was bored and wanted to me to play Rummikub with her. My two sons each had friends over, and all of the boys were playing on various electronic devices.

I wrote down what went through my head for the next ten minutes. Here it is:

Really? A snow day after they’ve been off school for the last four days. Why not just a two hour delay? The streets don’t look so bad. How am I supposed to get my work done today? I have 22 emails to respond to already. How on earth could I play Rummikub with Tali now? I feel guilty that I don’t have time to play with her (and it would be fun)…did I really just tell her to go watch TV?

Ugh! Now the phone’s ringing. Who is it? Oh, it’s my friend. I’m not picking up. Should I text her that I’ll call her later? Now I just lost my train of thought. What was I thinking about?

Seriously…there are four boys sitting in the family room all on different electronic devices. My oldest son Benji is watching a movie on his laptop while his friend is playing a game on his phone. My middle son Noah is texting his friends as part of a “group chat” (boy do I hate the “ping” sound that goes off every time he receives a text…didn’t I ask him to disable that sound a hundred times yesterday?) while his friend is texting from his phone. Why do they even bother to have friends over if they’re not going to interact with each other? Should I make them go sledding outside?

No! They’re old enough to figure out what to do themselves. And I need to get back to work. Now I have 26 emails in my inbox. Sometimes I feel like my life is just one long to-do list. I feel like that woman in the commercial from when I was a kid who said: “Calgon, take me away!” She had lots of chaos at home, and she probably didn’t even have a job. I want to relax in a quiet bath like she did in the commercial…or at least not have to answer 26 emails…and not feel guilty that I’m not interacting with my daughter and instead sent her to watch TV.

I wish I could just shut down my computer right now…and my phone…and turn off the TV…and go take the various devices out of all of the boys’ hands….and we could all just hang out and play Rummikub.

OK, I can’t realistically do it right now. But I CAN unplug—and I can encourage my whole family to unplug—as part of the National Day of Unplugging on March 6-7. We already do things differently on Shabbat than we do the other days of the week. I love it that as a family we always say the blessings and have Shabbat dinner on Friday night (no phones at the table—that’s one thing I insist on every night!), even if I do have to rush off at 7 pm to get to services at my synagogue. And though it’s not always easy being a family in which both parents are rabbis, I do especially enjoy those Saturdays when my kids and I go to my husband’s synagogue for services and we’re all together. Wouldn’t it be great if I didn’t use my phone or computer at all on those days? Could I really do that? Not check my email, voice messages or texts, before leaving for services on Saturday morning? And not check them when I get home?

I could just put my phone in a drawer Friday before sundown and not take it out until Saturday after sundown. I remember when I went away on a Jewish meditation retreat last year and I had to put my phone away from Friday afternoon until Sunday afternoon. It felt weird…even scary. And refreshing. And nice. It was humbling to realize that everyone I know (in that case even my husband and three kids, because they were home without me) would be just fine without me. And they were. And I had two days to just BE…to appreciate life…and creation. It was hard…really hard…not getting that dopamine rush I get when I get a text or email for two days straight…not having anything to distract me…but it was also wonderful…really wonderful.

I could recreate that wonderful feeling on the National Day of Unplugging. That feeling of being more fully present in the moment. Rather than emailing, calling or texting people and making plans for when Shabbat is over, I could be more truly in the moment of Shabbat. Rather than playing my favorite game on my phone as a way of relaxing after services, I could finally play that game of Rummikub with Tali. And the boys would probably play too. We always have a lot of fun when we all play games together. And we really don’t do it enough.

But for now, back to work….there it goes again, the annoying “ping” letting us all know that Noah’s getting a text. And now I have 35 emails in my inbox. How many more days until March 6th? I don’t need Calgon. For me, it can be “National Day of Unplugging…Shabbat…take me away!” And by “take me away” what I really mean is: “Take me away from technology…and let me be present right where I am.”

Do you plan to unplug on March 6-7? What will you do with your tech-free time?

When I was young, my sister taught me one of the most important things I needed to know about the High Holy Days: Always ask the big questions.

As kids, we attended services with the adults since child-friendly services hadn’t been invented yet. It was long. Really long. Now I lead services and understand why there is so much liturgy. But as teenagers it was tough to sit attentively for that long. My sister always brought a book with her to synagogue. But it wasn’t to pass the time, and it was not just any book. She felt that during the High Holy Days, we should be exploring the depths of religious and philosophical literature about the meaning of life. It was usually someone like Buber, Frankl, Hegel or Heidegger.

She loved finding the same themes they wrote about in the prayer book, and every now and then she would point out to me some kernel of wisdom she’d found or question that came up for her in one book or the other and we would ponder that in whispers for a while. What are we here for? Is there such a thing as a soul? What happens when we die and what makes us so afraid of it? She understood the true meaning of the season: to contemplate life, mortality and purpose. As I grew up, I started to see Rosh Hashanah and especially Yom Kippur as Judaism’s personal therapy session. When do we to put aside entire days to just focus on ourselves and the meaning of life?

My sister taught me that the Holy Days are about asking the big questions of life and death. Those questions are imbedded in our liturgy, but it can be hard to tease them out. These days, there are new prayer books that contain insightful meditations and commentary on each page. If you go to services, allow your eyes to wander all over the page, and allow your mind to wander where it needs to go. Things that come up while sitting in services are probably coming up for a good reason, and are pointing you to the work you need to do this year. If you don’t attend services, there are lots of ways to get into the High Holy Day spirit.

One Jewish organization, Reboot, has a great suggestion for digging deeply. It is called 10Q, for “ten questions.” There are ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur that are meant as a time to reflect on the year past and the year to come. 10Q puts a modern twist on this tradition and asks you (digitally) a big question every day during that period about your life plans, goals, relationships and how you relate to world events of the day. People of any background can use them to delve deeply with their broad, spiritual questions. And in case the craziness of the intervening year causes you to forget what matters most to you, they will send you your responses before Rosh Hashanah of 2015.

However you mark the days of reflection coming up, try to not let them just go by. Whether you spend these days in nature, in synagogue, at home or work, take some time to ask yourself the big questions.

Shabbat was created to give us one day of rest each week. Traditional Jews follow a very strict guide about what activities they avoid for 26 hours, beginning at sundown on Friday and ending after sunset on Saturday. They don’t work, clean, shop, spend money, watch movies, listen to music, write, draw, drive, cook with heat, turn on or off anything that is electrical, battery, or gas powered, or carry things outside the home. One of the widely promoted benefits of disconnecting from electronic devices is to reconnect with family, friends, and analog activities. It can be a special time to spend doing things that we have a hard time getting to.

For less traditional Jews, keeping Shabbat can take many forms. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said, “The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time.” In the global scheme of the modern world, separating time from space seems like an impossible dream.

Technology is part of my identity. I am rarely without my smart phone, one of those people who checks email and social media first thing in the morning and after lights out at night. Giving it up for 26 hours is a frightening prospect. I have tried many times and failed miserably. Cooking, I can do without, lights and heat can be easily set to operate by timers, shopping can wait, and all other “don’ts” can be accomplished with my smart phone. That’s the thing, the smart phone is operation central of my life. How could I possibly live without it?

Reboot, “a non-profit group designed to ‘reboot’ the cultures, traditions and rituals of Jewish life” has created an event to help us see Shabbat in a whole new way. It is called the National Day of Unplugging and with this blog, I am publicly committing to unplug on Shabbat, March 7-8. (IFF President Jodi Bromberg made the pledge too–read why here.) Is it possible for me to succeed? My idea is to separate the space into manageable sections. The first section will be enjoyed at Unplug SF, a celebration of Reboot’s National Day of Unplugging from 7:00pm to 12:30am. Catching up on sleep will cover the hours well past dawn, so that leaves about 11 hours to fill until Havdalah at 6:49pm.

For liberal Jews living in the modern world, what is OK and what isn’t OK on Shabbat? Each individual must decide what a spiritually meaningful Jewish practice looks like. These are not always easy decisions. The world does not stop just because it is Shabbat for a small minority of people. My family and friends might not understand my lack of response to their calls, emails, and text messages. Maybe it is just hard to change old habits and try something new. I cannot know what it feels like to unplug unless I try it. There is a cool page of real people’s reasons for unplugging on the National Day of Unplugging website. A couple of my favorites are “play with my puppy,” “spend quiet time with my loved ones” and “get outside.”

The unplug pledge is really just one day out of my entire life. My dog needs a hike, my family needs my attention, I need some exercise and there is beautiful world waiting to be discovered. I unplug to stroll the happy trails on Montara Mountain!

The following is a guest blog post by Dina Mann, National Marketing and Outreach Coordinator for Reboot, an organization that engages and inspires young, Jewishly-unconnected cultural creatives, innovators and thought-leaders who, through their candid and introspective conversations and creativity, generate projects that impact both the Jewish and non-Jewish worlds.

Traditionally, this is a day of celebration. Dancing, music and even some drinking is quite common. The question is: What’s everyone so happy about? Or a better question: How can we bring the spirit of creativity, excitement and joy from SimchatTorah and spread it throughout the year?

Enter Unscrolled. It’s a reinterpretation, a reimagining, a creative celebration: 54 leading Jewish writers, artists, photographers and screenwriters, plus actors, an architect, a musician and others grapple with the Torah, giving new meaning to the 54 Torah portions.

What is Unscrolled? First and foremost, it is a book that sums up the weekly Torah portion and then goes even further by creating interpretations that no medieval rabbi would think possible. More than a book, Unscrolled is a project that seeks to create a conversation around the Torah. With Unscrolled, we hope to give people who have never read the Torah, people who read the Hebrew Torah portions every week and people who think it’s a whole lot of brisket an opportunity to engage with the text in a fun, entertaining and offbeat way.

Want to get in on the action?

Visit Unscrolled.org to see sample pages, sign up for emails with parasha prompts and upcoming Unscrolled events.

Follow UNSCROLLED on Facebook and Twitter. Join the conversation and share your interpretations.

Keep it Simple. Sum up the weekly Torah portion in 140 character or less. Share on Twitter with #Torahin140

Go Deep. Respond to weekly prompts that will have you bringing the Torah into the 21st century.